‘O hun to ntan ni odun egun, Iyawo alagbaa yo ra Akara muko’ is a Yoruba adage that literally and creatively described how temporal and seasonal is Egun or Egungun festival in Yoruba Land. This could be contemporarily interpreted as “Nothing last forever”.
The adage is meant to advise and reawaken whoever is in the position of opportunities like Egungun that, (1) Time is of essence. (2) Use your time to benefit humanity and (3) opportunity comes but once and whatever legacy you can establish, better do it now so that posterity can be kind to you.
For the benefit of readers not from Yoruba land, Egun or Egungun in Yoruba is the same as a masquerade in English. They mostly conduct their ritual festival annually, while some biannually and others might be every 3 – 5 years.
The festival always comes within a period, usually a week or two. This period is dedicated to the Egungun to showcase their best, pay homages and collect gifts and royalties. They usually prepare well, with the egungun coming out with pomp and pageantry. They displayed their best acrobatic dance with ovation and applause from the audience. The audience sometimes gives gifts to them. It is the time to register their creativity in the memory of the audience. It is a time full of colours and ovation is usually very loud. Once the season is over, the egungun go back to their heavenly father and are never allowed to come out again until another season. This describes their temporariness.
Egungun festival can be likened to any political term of office. The political term of office in Nigeria is every four years and if you are lucky and have performed satisfactorily to the delight of your constituents, you might get another four years for the executives (the President & Governor) while for Legislators (Senate, House of Representatives & House of Assembly) can be repeated until their constituencies are tired of them. Once the term elapsed, most of the players return to their constituencies.
Most often during their terms, most of them forget the essence of the time, like Egungun they get carried away with superfluity, they forget where they are coming from, their sources, the promises they made, the support they had, the sacrifices of selflessness and emotion made on their behalf, the risk taken on their behalf, the love even shared with them. The new level brings out their real self that has hitherto been humbled by poverty and lack, greed overwhelmed them, they surrounded themselves with sycophants, their meanness emerges and they forget their terms. “Ohun to ntan ni egungun Odun”.
Their term ends, the reality dawn on them, their eyes open, egos are deflated but the hands of the clock cannot be reversed. The sycophants departed them, of course, they will go to the next place of food supply. ‘Awon arije nibi mo daru’ (Profiteers of rift and confusion).
But one good thing about time is that it provides an opportunity for posterity to smile on us through our legacy. Yes, the legacy during your term speaks for you. As a politician, the number of your projects and types, the completeness or incompleteness of your projects, the quality (standard and substandard) of projects and the number of lives you affected, the people you alleviated from poverty to wealth both facilitated and personally, all will speak for you.
People cannot be foul forever, your kindness, openness, fairness, corniness, how accommodating you are and your leadership attribute will be appraised by your people as your legacy. If you like engage all media houses for propaganda. This age has gone beyond that. Our eyes are opened. . . . “Ohun to nta ni egungun odun”.
I wish all my political friends and associates ending their terms, a happy end of term, and my prayer is that may their legacies speak for them and to those returning or coming afresh, always remember “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1.
Ohun to ntan ni egungun Odun
Written by,
Hon. Ajani Adeniyi
(Niyi Possible)
